The Hindu Business Line : `Illegal' ILD traffic: BSNL threatens to disconnect Reliance Infocomm

BHARAT Sanchar Nigam Ltd has threatened to pull the plug off Reliance Infocomm's international long distance network for allegedly carrying illegal traffic on its network. BSNL is understood to have disconnected Reliance's point of interconnection in Ahmedabad a few weeks ago because of this.

Senior BSNL officials confirmed that the matter was being taken up with Reliance at the State level wherever discrepancies were found. "It has been found that Reliance network was being used to route illegal ILD calls at various centres across the country. The issue is being taken up by BSNL officers at the local level," said a BSNL official.

However, a Reliance Infocomm spokesperson said that the company was offering services as per licence norms and no illegal activities were being undertaken. "We are not aware of any disconnections. All our points of interconnection with BSNL are working." The spat between Reliance and BSNL has been on for some time now. Earlier, Reliance had blamed the state-owned company of purposely denying interconnection, which was putting off the former's rollout plans.

Grey market concern: Meanwhile, the Department of Telecom is planning to step up monitoring and conduct raids across the country to curb the menace of the growing grey market in the international long distance segment. Already, 21 raids have been completed this year to track grey marketers, whose presence is leading to an annual loss of around Rs 1,800 crore to the exchequer, according to industry estimates.

It is also estimated that out of the total international traffic coming into India, about 30-50 per cent is now being routed via grey market operators. The low cost of operations and the difference in arbitrage between legitimate and illegal channels was keeping the grey market alive. The Cellular Phone Users' Association of India, a consumer organisation, has filed a public interest litigation with the Delhi High Court against DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on the grounds that the authorities have failed to curb the growing grey market. The court has directed the Union Government to file a status report on the measures it has undertaken to tackle grey market operations.

DoT officials said that the department was cracking down on offending companies, especially Internet service providers that are allowing grey marketers to use their network. They said that as against nine raids conducted in 1998-99, the number of raids had gone up to 20 in 2003-04. TRAI, on its part, has suggested lowering the arbitrage rates for legal international long distance calls to remove the difference with the grey operators.

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